Barren Mare

The weather was there, wish we were too

I’ve finally (finally!) conquered Mount Laundry after our holiday and come through the worst throes of Admin Valley- although I’ve come to the conclusion that we’ll never really leave that last place entirely. Just to give you a wee example- both Knox and I have quite a few individual bank and credit cards accounts. I think at last count it was something like 17 or so between us. Not all of which are used, of course, but tending to generate a lot of unnecessary paper work. Then we have a joint account which we use for the business accounting. I do everything online with that one, so over the months when the paper statements came, I just chucked them in a pile somewhere in my pit of a home office. The home office destined to become Caveat’s room.  

In a fit of mild insanity before leaving on our holiday, I decided we really needed to get going on sorting out that room. Possibly the first stirrings of the Nest! Nest! Nest! instinct. To be fair, it was also partly prompted by my finding an excellent little wardrobe in a charity shop- which had to be bought that moment so as to not to lose it to another prospective buyer who was at that very minute out measuring her car to see if it would fit. To move the wardrobe in, everything else had to shift rather hastily, including the desk and about nine hundred boxes of assorted papers and files, now sitting in various forlorn locations throughout the flat. I bought a couple of tester pots of paint and blobbed the walls with prospective colours.

Then we left on vacation. 

Upon our return, I discovered we need to find two particular bits of paper, one of which is a joint account bank statement. 

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said to Knox when he asked. “Could be….anywhere”. And so we looked- everywhere. I hoped in the course of our travels we might find the other essential bit of paper that I also need- but no. Nowhere to be found after about approximately 10 hours of searching. So I give up and will just have to order duplicates. 

So, as the last vestiges of holiday bliss dribble away, I find myself thinking back to our two weeks in the sun. Our routine went something like this: wake up about quarter to nine. Get Botany up if she wasn’t already awake, throw on some maternity shorts for me and a sun dress for her. Wander squinting in the morning sun down to the restaurant for breakfast. The first week it was cornflakes and fruit and then we discovered that if we got there in time, the chef would make fresh pancakes with chocolate sauce, giving proceedings a whole new frisson of excitement. Shovel in food, finish by 9.30 am. Knox would go off to his first sailing or windsurfing class of the day and I dropped off Botany at the kids’ club, also affectionately known as “beach nursery”. During our stay, there were three other little girls, all Botany's age and she was in heaven as far as her fellow classmates. The blackboard outside the club gaily announced the delights in store for the little people that day, accompanied by the endlessly perky nannies - Kayaking! Tennis! Trip to play park! Playdough fun! Face painting! Speed boat to get ice cream! Nap after lunch! Sailing! Disco dancing! See you grown-ups at 5.30pm!  

The first day when all the grown ups were signing up for their activities, I confess I looked out over the inviting blue sea and then wandered back to the hotel room with a trembling bottom lip. Then I pulled myself togetether and decided to make the most of my holiday anyway. Unable to partake of pretty much, well, anything by way of the sports on offer, my plan for the day usually involved getting another cup of coffee and sitting on one of the lounging sofas in the shade with my book by the restaurant until our hotel room was finished being cleaned. Then I would wander back to change into my swimsuit and lather self with sun cream. Waddle to poolside, find lounge chair in shade. Read book and play with iphone, occasionally jumping in water for gentle swim when it became too hot. On calm mornings when I had some energy, I would occasionally take a kayak out for a gentle paddle.  

At lunch time, Knox would emerge from the water and the two of us would go back to the restaurant to pile our plates full of salad, fresh fish, pasta, fresh baked bread and a buffet table groaning with desserts. Afterwards, it was usually too hot for me to do anything, so while Knox went off to yet another watersport session, I would go for a little lie down in the room. Sometimes I roused myself for an aqua fit class in the pool- or not. Our room was directly across from the nursery building, so I was able to spy on Botany as she pranced off to her next activity.   

Eventually it would be time to pick up Botany from the kids’ dining room where she would be finishing up dinner- and first on her agenda was usually getting straight back in the pool with me for another swim. As the sun started to slope away, we would finally all get chilled and tired, so back to the room for showers and to change into nice summery clothes for grown up dinner at 7.30. Most nights, Botany was content to sit humming on the wall next to our table, picking the flowers or playing quietly with stickers or games on my iphone while we ate. Or we joined forces with the other parents and let all the little girls sit together watching a movie on somebody’s laptopigadgetthing. Some nights there was entertainment in the form of a quiz or live music (at which point all the children would get up and dance wildly) and we’d all stay up late. 

 Other nights, Knox and I took turns going back to the room with Botany to let the other half stay out even later. Not being able to drink, this would possibly have had less appeal for me than for Knox- but for the very pleasant company of some of the other guests, including one woman upon whom I developed an enormous friend crush. She was charming, sweet and quite literally pantwettingly funny in her story telling. I’d come giggling into the room in the early hours, much to Knox’s amusement. 

Other days, beach nursery had a late afternoon start, and we would spend the morning doing family things- mainly more jumping in the pool. One day we loaded Botany into the kayak and we all paddled out to the island across the bay and another time we went into town to do some sightseeing (the one occasion when I came a bit too close to overheating). On those days, beach nursery ran something called "evening sleep club" which basically involved taking Botany over at 7pm in her jimjams and all the kiddies bedding down on little cots with a DVD while we wandered down the beach to a candlelit local restaurant for dinner. 

It was, in short, a fabulous two weeks. Aside from a couple of cranky moments, Botany behaved herself in a gold star worthy manner for the entire duration, and with a perfect balance of family/self/couple time, Knox and I relaxed into a mellow glow. There was of course a few minor downsides- the sleeping, for one, remained a low point, and I did feel decidedly unwieldy at some points compared to the bronzed bikini clad sylphs by the pool. But on the whole- perfection. We'd love to go back and probably can't afford to for the foreseeable future, as all that bliss did not come cheap- which made it all the more of a shining moment in time to remember.   

And so back to reality- soggy weather, toiling at work, worrying news from home, a business flailing with seasonal flux, a nursery to prepare- all while I survive on increasingly little sleep. I wouldn't have thought that last one was possible, but both nights over the weekend I finally dropped off at a startling 5am. Knox looks at my incredibly haggard face every morning and says this can't go on, but I feel it likely will, for another 12 weeks or so, depending on Caveat's arrival date. At which point I'm not likely to get any sleep either, but at at least someone else can get up to deal with it.  

 

One day

So, I went to London to see Anna H. and Thalia, just for the day. Due to numerous and varied logistical complications, staying over wasn't much of an option. Normally, I would never attempt to go to London and back in one day, unless it was for work- and even then, under the circumstances I would almost certainly decline. However, when Anna H. comes to town, all kinds of exceptions are to be made, and for good reason.

The itinerary involved my getting up at 4.15 am to dress, wash and drive self to the airport in time for a 7am flight. Landing by 8.30 am, on the Gatwick Express to Victoria by 9.30am and then by sitting down with friends to Sunday brunch- a soup bowl sized latte and basket of fresh baked bread in a charming little restaurant in Marylebone High Street by 10am.

Despite our long internet association, none of us had ever met in person before and yet within about half an hour we were dissecting our marital relationships, our varying bouts with infertility, parenting, what happens when parenting doesn't happen, career paths, plans for the future and a little bit of gossip about ye old blogosphere of old.

Having made time to come and meet us that day despite having other things on, Thalia endured a certain amount of grilling about the state of her marriage and even paid for our meal afterwards, which was extremely nice and good natured of her. She is delightful, in a measured and searingly intelligent way. Very kind. Very perceptive. And we both marvelled at how she manages to juggle all she does, and we are selfishly wishing she had time to blog more about it all.

We parted ways with Thalia after a couple of hours, with Anna and I heading off to make our way the East End and Spitalfields market. It was somewhat astonishing that between the diversionary tube works and the amount our mouths were running that we didn't end up completely off piste in, say, Hackney, but with the aid of a bit of old fashioned and Google mappage combined, we made it to our destination. Proceeded to wander and gab and sometimes pause for breath in what had potential to be total sensory overload. We wandered the stalls with no particular agenda- I hoped to buy Botany something shiny but nothing caught my fancy. We drooled over stylishly cut dresses and covetable fabrics. Trinkets and baubles, retro cameras and old classic Penguin edition books. We bought more food- Anna partaking of a delicious, savoury Caribbean flavoured dish and me a chocolate cream filled donut item aptly named "the Kong".

Rounding a corner, we came across a stall selling skirts- and a wonderful coat with a pig patterned inner lining and circular embroidery up the back, which I instantly fell in love with. After much swithering and a further wander before returning to try it on and then an endless wait at the world's slowest cash machine and no doubt testing poor Anna's patience, I bought it. It's a kind of wrap-around cut and should be serviceable as a winter coat to fit me for the duration of my (caveat) expansion right through to December- or so I hope. I usually have all sorts of guilt pangs about buying myself expensive stuff these days. But each time I look at it hanging up next to my bed, it reminds me of my day with Anna and all I feel is joy.

Sated on the market (and now out of money) we hopped the tube again for a wee detour to look at something in John Lewis in Oxford Street. Afterwards, carrot cake and tea in the coffee shop. It started to rain a little and it was time for me to start to make the long trek back to Gatwick. We parted at Oxford Circus station and the whole way home I thought of the 1,001 other things I meant to ask Anna. I think we could have quite honestly filled a whole week and not scratched the surface of things to discuss. She is hands down some of the best company I have ever enjoyed- warm, gorgeous, bright, witty, easy going, kind and entirely worth the effort of traveling for one day in London.

Tube. Sweltering in the relative London heat. Back to Gatwick on the overcrowded train. Exhaustion starting to set in and realising I urgently needed to eat something other than cake and cream donuts. Rushing through security, only to have endless wait in terminal. Loitering by seafood bar watching people swilling bubbly and eating £395 caviar. Made do with £1 Boots chicken salad sandwich. Flight finally called, mad dash to the gate. Boarded then sat for over an hour on the runway while overtired baby in back treated us to operatic wailing. I won't tell you how many times I nearly threw up. An hour flight, then finally back on home turf, stagger to car, drive home. Circle the block endlessly unable to find parking space. Park miles from flat. Limp in the door, bedraggled and utterly wiped out at 10.30pm.

To sleep, smiling.

The sky is falling

This by way of a quick update:

The roof- apparently it's worse than we thought. In addition to the other repairs needing done, the chimney stack needs replacing in its entirety. Evidently, said chimney stack would be lined with gold and mother of pearl, because sums in the region of £20,000 have been bandied about as the price for the work.

Undeterred by impending financial catastrophe, I went ahead and bought an iphone. And I looooove it. As a gadget, it does seem to me to be eyewateringly overpriced but everything about it is so just so pleasing to me that I just shrug and play another round of Angry Birds.

Compounding the spending insanity, I ALSO went ahead and booked a holiday for the three of us. Someplace warm with lots of water sports activities and an excellent kid's club for Botany so they can teach her to paraglide and scuba dive while I lie by the pool in blissful ignorance, sipping a cocktail. In all seriousness, though, it's a great set up very much geared up to a good balance of family time/adult time- so apart from the absolutely hellacious flight schedule (arrival at the hotel at 3am? Urgggh)- I'm very much looking forward to our first family holiday in over two years. Cost be damned. Who needs a new chimney stack anyway?

 And now I am going to lie down again, since it appears I've contracted a charming variety of the coxsackie virus- it's hand, foot and mouth or herpangina but either way, it's hell. Knox had it first- we think he picked it up at work- and he spent about five days feeling as if he was gargling shards of glass, with horrendous ulcers all over his tongue, mouth and throat. And now he's given it to me, hurrah! I don't have any of the ulcers yet- so far I have only enjoyed a fever of 103 degrees and a very sore throat, together with the sense that every ounce of energy has been sapped from my being. The good news is that Botany doesn't have it- yet. But I have a sense of foreboding doom, that it's inevitable. A shame, since having now bounced back from her ear infection she's been delightful of late and I shudder at the the prospect of reverting to her whiny, grumpy, sleep disrupted, clingy state.

I will close my eyes and dream of sun.

For richer, for poorer

Rest assured, kind readers, I am not going to disappear on you permanently- or even more than temporarily, I hope. But I would be lying if I said I hadn’t considered taking a wee hiatus from blogging. Mostly, I get embarrassed about the time in between posts. I feel like a neglectful relative, owing my Great Aunt Lucy in Darkest Peru a long overdue postcard. When I finally sit down to do it, there is often so much that has happened that I fear I can never catch up.   

 I start each day with the best of intentions about keeping up- and about many things, I might add. For example, on trips to the supermarket, I frequently buy the ingredients for a special recipe to slow cook. But cooking anything remotely complicated for me takes more concentration than I can muster with a toddler underfoot. So I plan on waiting until she is in bed- by which point of course, it is too late for me to do anything other than fall asleep in my bath. Weeks go by and soon I have to excavate the now-furry onions/cheese/fish from the food stores, chucking it all away in exasperated pique. If cooking is work for me, then at least writing is meant to be fun. 

But what I realised the other day is fun, for my own purposes seems like a foreign word. It’s not that I never have a nice time, for example doing something with Botany, but it seems like I rarely get an opportunity to do anything pleasant or pleasurable just for myself- or at least, not an opportunity which is not shoehorned into the ten thousand other daily obligations. The mantra of “make time for you!” has never been truer nor harder to achieve than it is just now. 

I don’t actually mind this as much as I might have, say, ten years ago. There’s no escaping the fact that part of my state of being on a perpetual hamster wheel stems from juggling the demands of working and parenting. And there’s still not a day that goes by (even on the very worst days) that I don’t acknowledge my good fortune in being able to be a parent at all. I’ve been busy in the past but a lot of the time, it all felt kind of empty and meaningless. Filling up the days with stuff to…just fill up the days.  I recognise that I’ve had my chance to have all the me-time in the world, and I reached a point where I was ready to choose something different. And here we are…

The problem is, while parenting remains a plus side overall, some of the other things I have chosen have wound up being unbelievably stressful and tiring and anxiety provoking. I wish I could divulge more about the issues surrounding the business- unfortunately, it would be difficult to get into the actual detail without comprising privacy, both mine and Knox’s. Suffice to say, we are having a completely wretched time of it right now and losing money every day. Both of are working like possessed goblins to try to find ways to improve it – and a lot of it is actual hard physical graft, on our feet all day, literal sweat on the brows. We know the adage that it takes time but at the rate we are going, we may well turn into pumpkins long before midnight, with Knox’s life savings vanishing in a puff of smoke. And the worst thing is, we feel stupid a lot of the time. Naïve and foolhardy and stupid. We made some assumptions based on best estimates and our gamble has not so far paid off. Again, not to overwork the analogy of a new born, but I simply had no comprehension of how completely terrifying and nightmarish this experience could be. When people who have been there nod and smile sagely, saying, oh well, it’s hard at first and it’s long hours and a lot of economic risk, I really didn’t grasp how much that was going to translate into feeling like we are about to topple into the pit of financial DOOM at any moment. I am not good with doom, generally, and anything related to financial peril is my own particular brand of hell.  

Happily, time with Botany is proving more enjoyable again. We spent a happy hour this afternoon, sitting in a sunny patch on the kitchen floor, emptying out and rearranging the contents of my jewellery box, with her adorning my head with about ten different necklaces and bracelets, as if I was some sort of peculiar royalty in need of multiple crowns. She sang a little tune to herself as she played, the lyrics to which sounded something like “moosh, moosh, moosh”- over and over again. The late afternoon sunlight shone through the wispy curls at the back of her neck and made her eyes turn a pretty colour. It was quite a soothing and peaceful interlude in what is tending to be an otherwise fraught existence.      

Busy as a dog with more than one...tail

I’ve recently been replaying a scene in my head from the film Terms of Endearment (a movie which never fails to reduce me to a soggy tearstained mess at the end, no matter how many times I’ve viewed it over the years.) A doe-eyed Debra Winger, proudly clutching her husband's arm, announces that she has some good news to her horrified mother, (the incomparable Shirley Maclean)- namely that she is “officially pregnant”.  And this appears to be entirely on the basis that she is "never late". 

The funny thing is that I, too, am never late- and so when my period did not arrive on time last week, it was with hope fermenting in my heart that I allowed myself to commence the peestick ritual. It's a good thing, however, that I did not run around making any official announcements, given that the results were repeatedly, decidedly negative. My period did eventually decide to show up a couple of days later, like a surly dinner party guest who couldn't be bothered to phone ahead to indicate there might be a delayed arrival.

One little interesting factor did emerge from all this- having come to the belief that there might actually be something to test for, I used the second stick from the box of the brand previously suspected of giving me false positives or evaporation lines- in the shape of a ultra faint pink line. This time, there was no mistaking the absolute negativity; nothing, not even a shadow where the second line should be, even more the most deluded of pregnancy test squinters. This leads me to think with perhaps more certainty that it was a chemical pregnancy on that earlier occasion. Not that I really know what to do with that information other than to file in the mental box labeled "Huh" and move on.    

In other news- lordy, we are busy. Knox has a particularly colourful description to convey just how frantic things are at the moment-it’s very apt but unfortunately I’m slightly too prim to do more than allude to it in the title to the post. My days generally consist of getting Botany and myself up and to work, doing my hours at the salt mines, picking up Botany as soon as possible to squeeze in a couple hours of quality parenting time before her bedtime, then sorting out packed lunches for the next day, laundry and spending a couple more hours with Knox working on his business stuff before falling into bed at stupid o'clock and lying awake half the night worrying about the nitty and the gritty. It’s relentless and at the same time, just a little exhilarating, much in the manner of the endorphin high after an extended stint on the treadmill. So I hope you will bear with me if the posting gets a bit sparser for a short time, until Knox is fully up and running.

Also, I finally broke down and bought a netbook- we were sick of the jostling for position on my old laptop, which in any event continues to run at the speed of seeping pondwater. The new little fella is super zippy and compared to the NOISY FAN BLAST of the laptop, it is mercifully quiet. It does have its wee quirks though, one of which is font size related and which I have not quite managed to figure out-so if the text on the blog page looks odd suddenly, that is why. Also, I discovered tonight that on a keyboard of this size, a stray thumb can do signficant damage in the form of LOSING an entire almost finished post; imagine my chagrin given the aforementioned state of dog-crazy busy-ness. It is because I love you so much, O Internets, that I summoned the will to write it again, even though I am sure I was twice as witty and profound earlier in the evening. Imagine.      

The cure for what ails us

Botany rarely gets ill. Aside from the initial bouts of colic when she was a newborn and the odd cough and mild cold (and, er, threadworms), she is a hardy little soul. To date, she has vomited exactly once in her entire life- albeit in a spectacularly dramatic fashion, having just consumed a homemade blueberry smoothie, the contents of which she deposited all over my lap as I sat trying to put her shoes on. For the last year and a half, I have been alternately secretly smug and goat-sacrificingly grateful at the robustness of her immune system. Sure, I had to put up with what seemed like a never ending siege of 4am wake up calls for months on end but at least she was jumping bean healthy throughout. Just as well, because in truth, had Botany been prone to much in the way of sickness, I think it might just have put me over the single parenting edge. 

This week, she seems to have developed an ear infection. I know that, not due to my superior parenting ability to diagnosis illness, but because she suddenly grabbed me and whimpered, "My ear is sore" over and over while simultaneously regressing into small, sad, cuddly baby mode. This sent me flailing to the cupboard for the magic pink medicine stuff, while realising that Botany's previous health record has spoiled me somewhat. I suddenly feel vastly inexperienced in dealing with toddler unwellness. Some things seem pretty obvious- like when she woke up crying at 3am, complaining of a sore ear, she needed another dose of painkiller. Other things are less so- she seemed relatively fine in the morning but was she unwell enough to stay home from nursery? Should I substitute my own doctor's appointment today with one for her? How exactly does that thermometer thing work, anyway? Where's my mommy when I need her?

And, in the back of my mind was the recent tragic news from a former member of my postnatal group. Her child was the same age as Botany and I remember his sweet, round blue eyes. We had long since lost touch but last week I learned from a friend of a friend that the boy was became unwell one day and within 24 hours had died of something along the lines of meningitis. Good Lord. It hit me that I need to become a bit more...alive, if I may use that term, to signs and symptoms of childhood illnesses. It just seems like a hard line to walk- balancing the desire to wrap in cotton wool with the tempering of needless paranoia. 

I also came to the view recently that I am overdue for attending to my own medical needs and it's time to rectify that. That weird, slow growing lump on my head was finally looked at today; I was 90% certain it was of the not-harmful cyst variety but then again, you know, it struck me that body lumps of any type should probably at least be monitored even cursorily by somebody with an actual medical degree. While I was there, I casually mentioned the old thyroid condition in the context of trying to get pregnant again and the doctor had the needle in my arm faster than you can say "endocrine". I guess no harm in having it checked out, since it's been a year since my last test.

Oh, and I'm going to the dentist next week for the first time in about two years. The root canal tooth is not looking too happy and it occurred to me that the temporary filling the dentist put in way back when was in fact, meant to be just that- temporary- and is probably well past its sell by date.

To be honest, I think I put off dealing with anything related to dentistry (and in particular that tooth) for so long, partly because of the expense and partly because of the incredibly bad associations created from that time in my life. I don't believe I will ever quite get over the memory of the night before the root canal treatment. Physical pain- huge, immense, overwhelming in my mouth and jaw. Finding out that my relationship with E. was over. Agony.

I remember sitting in the dentist's waiting room, watching the clock tick with treacle slowness toward the hour of my appointment, tears running down my face as I willed myself to hold it together, hold it together for just a few more minutes. It still feels like a part of me died from the effort it took to get through that morning. It wouldn't surprise me to learn there is a small shadowy ghost of me still haunting that waiting room- hanging over the back of the fancy leather chairs, fingers pressed against the glass topped coffee table, praying for relief.

Evaporation

In a fit of optimism, together with a growing addiction for the seemingly limitless supply of cheap internet pregnancy tests now gracing my kitchen cupboard, I started on a programme of testing relatively early this month. Every morning, the results were the same- a snowy white canvas of negativity. Undaunted, I carried on, feeling more and more convinced as the days passed that I felt...well, something. If perhaps not entirely pregnant, then certainly not not pregnant either.  

It was therefore with growing frustration that I noted the test results remained steadfastly negative, even as the day my period was due arrived and nothing happened. It's really not like me to be late, ever, so I became convinced that the internet cheapies were just lying to me with their blank stares. I decided to go wild and crazy, breaking out one of the bigger guns in the form of...a supermarket cheapie. Still cheap, but at least different, I reasoned. I wasn't sure I could go to sleep with doubt hanging over me, so in a moment of desperate impatience, I tested at about ten o'clock at night, having drunk very little and crossed my legs for the previous three and half hours. 

After about four minutes, a very pale little shadow of a second line emerged. When I say pale, I mean just the lightest shade of pink, visible by holding the stick up to a decent light and tilting it slightly. But something there, all the same, I thought. I put it down and tried to go to bed but kept getting up to look at it again. Yes, a line, definitely a second line- albeit a runt of the litter type effort, so barely there. In my heart, I suspected this did Not. Bode. Well. Surely by this stage, I imagined that the line should have been a bit more robust, showing more rosy definition? But then, I reckoned that I would simply have to wait to do another test with some hormone riddled first morning pee. I put the package by the bedside table and lay down. Oops, get up and check that test again. Mmm, faint line. Go to bed. One more time, maybe under a different light? Yes, faint something or other. Wait. Wait. Bed.  

Just after midnight, I finally went to sleep, one part of my brain once again engaging in the amusing activity of picking out baby names and redecorating the spare bedroom, and the other part firmly in reality check mode.   

I woke up in the morning to discover my period had undoubtedly arrived after all. My hopes of potential positive outcome had, like Keyser Soze, vanished once again. 

I don't really know what to think. Knox, in his relatively detached fashion and insofar as he actually admits to seeing anything at all, thinks it's another case of evaporation lines. But I just don't know. This one- having at least shown up to the party (within the testing deadline) wearing a very pale pink frock-suggests to me more something along the lines of an early, unsuccessful chemical pregnancy. I guess there's no way to be sure though, so any disappointment is tempered with a solid dose of doubt, and a fresh resolve to consider laying off the mindfuckery of the peesticks, at least until there is perhaps something more concrete to go on. 

In other news, and keeping on the theme of things drying up and disappearing:- Botany is at last, finally, once and for all de-boobed. I had vowed that after the wedding I was going to take steps in that direction, to encourage her to give it up. The morning session went without too much of a battle, but she continued to ask for it before bedtime, and at naptime, and since I had initially explained to her that boob was only for sleepy times, at first it seemed unfair to deny her. She would still go to bed quite happily for other people without any props, so I rationalised that it wasn't causing any big problems and she would give it up when she was ready. And to be honest, I really worried mostly about naptime, since I feared that if she lost the nursing, she would simply stop having a daytime sleep and that was certainly not something that I was ready for. 

So the months rolled by and I began to fret again and wonder whether if left up to her we would be nursing past her third birthday. Once a sure fire way of getting her to go to sleep at naptime, the routine started to fail and she would cry as soon as I put her down. Bedtimes were increasingly comprised of backrubs and stories before a very short nurse after which she would lie down in her cot cuddling her dolly. 

Then one night a couple of weeks ago, when it came to the last part of our routine, I had that sensation again that I was just going to climb out of my skin and it felt all wrong to me and I knew that was it. My mind was made up. The next night I rubbed her back for an extra long time and when she sweetly asked for boob, we had a cuddle in the nursing chair with a bottle instead. Without any real tears or fuss, within two nights, that was it. Done. To my great surprise, the nap time session was also dropped without so much as a further request or backward glance. Thus I discovered that-fingers crossed- she's quite happy to fall asleep on her own at nap time too, thank you very much. 

Had it happened a year ago, I imagine I may have had more mixed feelings about the end of such a special and wonderful experience.  And it was, it was, believe me, oh, it was! But in fact- for me anyway- at this point it feels more like a millstone off my neck than a milestone. That, and the ease with which Botany let go makes me think it was probably high time, if not even a bit overdue, for us to move on. Always moving on.

Indiana Jones does the nursery run

Winter. I am so totally ready for it to be over. All the more unfortunate considering that it is only the beginning of February.

I realised earlier today that my impatience with this particular season is less to do with the actual weather (cold, crappy, wet, dark) and more to do with all the paraphernalia attached to it- especially for Botany. My mother accompanied us on the nursery run this morning and she could not believe what an immense palaver it was to get us all out of the house with all the required accoutrement.

Hat. Scarf. Mittens. Wellie boots. Spare shoes to change into once at nursery. Fleece. Winter coat over fleece. Botany, for heaven's sake hold still for two seconds while I zip. Oops, hat too small. Where is other hat? Oh, it must be the pink one. Um, pink hat, whither? Pink gloves, but one stripey and therefore does not match. Not a problem. Extra cardigan to wear over dress, in case too cold. Yes, darling. I know you goddarunnynose. Tissue. Lunch bag. Bag with new pack of nappies and wipes. My coat, my hat, my gloves, my scarf, my boots. Ready? Ready. 

I think I have said before that of all the aspects of parenting, the morning work/nursery run is probably hands down my least favourite part of the job. And most days (touch wood) it goes OK. I don't know why I loathe it so much. It's just that every morning, I have this horrid nagging doubt that I will actually be able to singlehandedly accomplish the task of getting both Botany and myself up, dressed and out the door and to the office within a reasonable timescale. Every day, I arrive at my desk, feeling like I have secretly sprinted, Indiana Jones style, through a hazardous maze filled with lethal boobytraps and across no man's land dodging sniper fire- and yet have miraculously survived, still wearing my hat.

It is therefore with some trepidation that I have now signed up for an extra day at work. I think I mentioned this plan very briefly before. The upshot is that with Knox giving up his job and trying to start his business, some extra cash flowing in from other sources (me! me!) would be a big help. Plus, if I ever do manage to get pregnant, it makes a lot more sense to have a maternity leave based on four days of pay rather than three. Plus, and this is possibly going to sound completely terrible, but there are some days when I am home at Botany where I think we are both driving each other crazy and it would enhance the quality of our time together if some of the quantity were dispelled just a little.

That was the theory, anyway- but when I asked the nursery about it back in November, they told me there would be no space for an extra day for Botany until roughly July 2010. Having made up my mind at that point I wanted to do it, I flailed around looking to see if there was any childcare alternative. Then, having agonised about it, I decided it was best, for various reasons, to leave her where she was. I did put her name down on the nursery waiting list, though and- surprise, surprise- last week, they informed me there was a spot opening in two weeks time and did I want it? 

Strangely, having previously been so keen, I had to go away and think about it for a bit. Suddenly, working four days with Botany at nursery seemed like a lot. Tuesdays, while still occasionally a bit fraught as the tail end of our time together, had been going better and perhaps it was foolish to give up the opportunity to be with her after all. The next thing you know, she'd be going off to primary school and then I'd never see her and...my baby! My baby is growing up!

In the end, though, pragmatism won out. The reality is that while up until now, it has been a tremendous privilege to be able to work part time three days a week and stay home with Botany. But as a family in transition, we are faced with some tough choices about how we manage economically. I'm in a relatively good position as a potential wage earner and I really need to make the most of it. Working more will mean I can maybe even squirrel some money away for savings, just in case there is another baby, and also  pay for Botany's preschool next year.

That last one was a major factor. You see, I found a most fabulous preschool based literally right around the corner, in our neighbourhood. I'd been considering it for a while, so we finally went to see it last week and afterwards, I had a hard time extracting Botany from its many delights. The fees border on the eye-wateringly expensive- but with working the extra day, it ought to be manageable. And they l have space, so I can reserve a spot for her now, to begin in the autumn when she turns three. I'm planning on sending her there at least two days a week; already I have visions of us skipping hand in hand in the morning, past the pergola toward the little nursery cottage.       

So that's all good. I just have to harness the remaining guilt I feel about the change in the meantime and prepare for the remaining slog through the dreaded winter mornings. Now, where did Ieave my bullwhip?

In the big scheme of things

Given the ongoing discussion in the comments of the recent Knox-Botany-E. text message drama, I'm thinking I might say just a bit more about it after all, once I get a chance to put my thoughts down. But first:

Since you asked, the oracle of the peestick was consulted several times earlier this week. But the result was a decided "no", confirmed by the unmistakable arrival of a period yesterday. Not even a ghost of a line to tease me this time. It leaves me wondering: is false hope better than no hope at all?

Still, the recent unimaginably nightmarish events in Haiti remind me yet again of the folly of too much self-indulgent focus on my own small disappointment. This month, all the proceeds I receive from advertising revenue on this blog will go to aid efforts, in particular Save the Children and the British Red Cross. 

Don't let this put you off Thanksgiving dinner

I came home from work to find a dead mouse in the hallway. Stuffed full of the tasty poison on which it had gorged itself the last few days and now looking for a place to quietly expire, it had crawled in its final moments, to Botany's designated naughty spot. There it lay, motionless, next to the canvas shoe rack I had chucked there in a pile for cleaning (having been retrieved it, covered in mouse poo, from under the bed earlier this week).

In the immediate mayhem of our arrival home (MUMMY COAT OFF! BOTANY COAT OFF! SHOES OFF! Lunchbag DOWN! Scarf TANGLE! Zippers DO!) neither of us noticed the mouse's body. I finally spotted it out of the corner of my eye as I bent down to pick up the mail.

Is that? Oh gawd. It is. Botany, let's go play in your room until your Daddy gets here!

When her back was turned, I nonchalantly rearranged the canvas so that it covered the mouse's inert little form. Botany ran into the kitchen to get her usual post-nursery smoothie drink and began screaming "mouse, mouse!" while pointing behind the washing machine, since that is where she thinks all the mice reside (and some others probably do). Having ascertained there were, in fact, no evidence of living mice in the vicinity of the laundry  I decided it was best not to mention the dead one in the hallway. Particularly since after some further screaming, her initial response would almost certainly be "I want to pet him." Um, no.

Eventually, I managed to herd her into the living room and get a distracting DVD on while I plotted how best to dispose of the mouse body. Scoop it up with the dustpan and into the bin, was my thinking. But seeing how  the slightest movement toward the door alerts Botany to my possible escape (Warning! Warning! Mother attempting to leave the room! Latch, latch!) I wisely decided it was best to wait until E. arrived for his dinnertime visit.

During a particularly riveting moment of the movie, I stealthily stuck my head into the hallway to peer under the shoe rack. Yep. Small brown mouse still there. Still dead. 

Half an hour later, the entry door buzzer went. Botany charged for the hallway, wiggling in delight. I scooped her up, pressed the button by the front door, reached for the bolt lock, opened the door as E. bounded up the stairs... and SCREAMED at the sight of the previously dead mouse now crawling in hellishly slow motion across the hall toward MY FEET.

ARGHHH!

I confess what followed thereafter was not behaviour befitting the confident, competent, self assured  woman I pretend to be.  All I can say is that there is a big gap between the idea of a mouse (f cute, cuddly and pretty much harmless) and the sudden resurrection of a rodent previously known for tortuous scrabbling around under my bed at night, believed to be dead but now risen and moving about in grotesque slo-mo horror movie type fashion under the bright glare of the hall lights, in plain view of an impressionable two year old.

Somehow, I managed to heave myself and Botany straight out the front door past E., still screaming. DEAD MOUSE! BUT NOT DEAD ENOUGH! There, there, it's there, THERE by the cabinet in the hall, arrrggggh! DON'T LET HER SEE IT! DO SOMETHING- GET IT OUT!

Botany of course began freaking out that I was freaking out and it's cold in the entry hall and E. was shouting that he needed a cardboard box in which to herd the (according to him) "very much alive mouse".  Botany began thrashing around in my arms so I managed to scoot into my bedroom and barricade ourselves in for the remainder of the mouse retrieval. Of course the whole "barricade" notion incensed Botany even further and she began to howl to get out, wanting to see her daddy, resulting in me having to stand in front of the bedroom door to hold her back.

"Hurry up!" I shouted at E.

"This is not as easy as it looks!" he shouted back.

Why am I not somewhere nice with my family, eating turkey and cranberry and that nice marshmallow goop my mother makes, I pondered, as E. dashed down the stairs with the undead mouse wrapped in a bit of cardboard and an old gardening glove. Liberated into the neighbour's garden, we are fairly certain the mouse is not long for this world, but at this point it would not surprise me to see it crawling back up the stairs tomorrow morning. Afterwards, peace restored, Botany enjoyed her festive dinner of spaghetti and "eatballs" as she calls them, while I partook of some soothing hot buttered toast to calm the nerves. 

Happy Thanksgiving!